[2018/04/12 12:03] Sheila Yoshikawa: Hi everyone, and welcome to the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable. We meet on Thursdays at 12 noon SLT for an hour. 8pm In UK, 3pm EST. VWER is a forum to educate and inform the community about issues that are important and relevant to education in virtual worlds. This is a public meeting, so we will be keeping and publishing a transcript. The VWER continues to develop a community of educators from around the world.

[2018/04/12 12:04] Sheila Yoshikawa: I am moderating today. The topic for this week’s meeting will be: Misinformation! After the introductions i will give a very short presentation in voice. The slides/text are on the notecard you get if you click the Topic box on the table. After the short presentation there will be a text chat discussion

[2018/04/12 12:05] Sheila Yoshikawa: Let’s start as we normally do and introduce ourselves; just type into text chat

[2018/04/12 12:05] Sheila Yoshikawa: I teach and research in the Information School, University of Sheffield, UK

The internet is forcing us to reinvent learning environments. Anything we need to learn is on the internet, so we no longer need to spend money on paper books. Do we need to spend money on building more brick and mortar schools? We could put well-staffed and well-equipped learning centers on the internet.

– Example of a more substantial international effort
– Group set up by European Commission in January 2018 “to advise on
policy initiatives to counter fake news and disinformation spread
online”
– 39 members: media/communications academics; media organisations
(e.g. Facebook, Bertelsmann, Sky); fact-checking organisations;
citizen groups

Disinformation defined:
– Includes all forms of false, inaccurate, or misleading information
designed, presented?and promoted to intentionally cause public harm or
for profit
– Excludes illegal content & also satire and parody
– Avoids term “fake news” on grounds that this has been
misappropriated to mean anything disagreeable to someone

Issues such as:
– Politicians/ governments may spread disinformation: also may not
support a free press which would enable many points of view
– Some news media do not have high journalistic standards
– Citizens may spread disinformation “highly polarized societies with
low levels of trust provide a fertile ground for the production and
circulation of ideologically motivated disinformation”
– Digital media makes it all more complicated

No simple solution
Proposed strategy based on:
– Enhancing transparency of online news
– Promoting media and information literacy
– Developings tools to help people/ journalists tackle disinformation
“Safeguard the diversity and sustainability of the European news media
ecosystem”
– More research

Step 1: short term
– Forming a coalition of stakeholders (media companies; factchecking
agencies; academic experts etc.) to draw up a self-regulation Code of
Practices & ensure implementation & review
– Review whether this is working after a year
– Governments/ EU support development of a network of independent
European Centres for (academic) research on disinformation + a central
Centre of Excellence

Step 2: longer term
– The European Commission “Sharpen actions in support of media and
information literacy for all citizens and the promotion of media
literacy in EU curricula reforms”
– Individual countries similarly
— Pay more attention to developing MIL strategies & education for
all population groups
— “Refrain from interfering with the editorial independence of
media” & encourage a pluralist media scene
– News media organisations cooperating to develop MIL and e.g.
“continue investing in quality journalisms and equip newsrooms with
professional automatic content verification tools”

In virtual worlds: Are these proposed strategy points relevant? Could
we do anything about them?
– Enhancing transparency of online news
– Promoting media and information literacy
– Developings tools to help people/ journalists tackle disinformation
– “Safeguard the diversity and sustainability of the European news
media ecosystem”
– More research into disinformation

[2018/04/12 12:22] Sheila Yoshikawa: In virtual worlds: Are these proposed strategy points relevant? Could we do anything about them?

– Enhancing transparency of online news

– Promoting media and information literacy

– Developings tools to help people/ journalists tackle disinformation

– “Safeguard the diversity and sustainability of the European news media ecosystem”

– More research into disinformation

[2018/04/12 12:23] Sheila Yoshikawa: so that was my first question: do you think any of this is relevant to us? can we do anything about it? any views?

[2018/04/12 12:23] Marly (marly.milena): A life and death one is whether, how much, etc Syria is using chemical warfare since all sorts of decisions about how to deal with this situation are based on knowing what is actually happening. This would affect us all

[2018/04/12 12:24] Sheila Yoshikawa: indeed, and the situation is horribly like Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, which of course ended up being misinformation

[2018/04/12 12:24] Marly (marly.milena): Yup

[2018/04/12 12:25] Sheila Yoshikawa: Are we affected by misinformation specifically as educators in virtual worlds? I was thinking that there is misinformation ABOUT us! for example people writing about virtual worlds and just talking about sex, sigh

[2018/04/12 12:26] Edward Tarber: maybe not specifically, but of course we also depend on reliable information … too bad there is no lie detector test for news …. only solution is to use many different sources and “calculate” a probability of truth

[2018/04/12 12:27] Camie Rembrandt: I mean there is sex in virtual words – but there’s also a lot more than that

[2018/04/12 12:27] Marly (marly.milena): This culture of misinformation brings out human insecurities and produces confusion, craziness, inability to make decisions, despair about where to look for the truth. I don’t think you can separate here and there; it is the zeitgeist of the times and affects everyone

[2018/04/12 12:27] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Edward although you may have 4 sources with misinformation and just one with the better information….

[2018/04/12 12:28] Sheila Yoshikawa: I think it has made some people rethink giving “recipes” for judging information, in that this also makes it seem like it is easy to tell “facts” from “lies”

[2018/04/12 12:28] Edward Tarber: but I wouldn’t trust an AI to assess news, would you?

[2018/04/12 12:28] Sheila Yoshikawa: no! especially when you don’t know how the AI is programmed–and that also causes the problems – ie social media and search engines feeding us stuff they think from algorithms we will agree with and like (rather than more accurate news). I have seen a lot about “filter bubbles” that we get more and more enclosed in ideas etc. that are familiar to us, although to be fair some people also saying that this effect is exaggerated

[2018/04/12 12:30] Camie Rembrandt: @Sheila – it’s just about virtual worlds, every time I refer to Twitter people tell me how terrible and divisive it is – and it can be that, of course – but I’m part of very positive supportive communities where none of that happens. So, I guess I could say misinformation is also a consequence of bad/good experiences?

[2018/04/12 12:31] Camie Rembrandt: @Sheila “it’s NOT just about”

[2018/04/12 12:31] ThinkererSelby Evans (thinkerer.melville): Even the best news sources hype their news to the point that they are overstating the importance.

[2018/04/12 12:31] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Selby the BBC for example has got worse like that, and I use to think it was reliable

[2018/04/12 12:32] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Camie yes, I think it is easier in a virtual world to steer clear of the non-supportive (than on Twitter)?

[2018/04/12 12:32] Marly (marly.milena): The lack of balance is also atrocious…very few publications or news sources where you can get GOOD news

[2018/04/12 12:33] Sheila Yoshikawa: In the UK @Marly the number of trained journalist on mainstream newspapers and news media has declined steadily, so you may get an unpaid intern putting together stories and being told to make it clickbait

[2018/04/12 12:35] Camie Rembrandt: @Sheila I steer clear – there are strategies to do it – just like in SL: don’t go to places where those things happen – in Twitter, use tools like TweetDeck and focus on the topics and communities you enjoy instead of going through all that is tweeted.

[2018/04/12 12:36] Camie Rembrandt: Yes, Selby, that has become quite common

[2018/04/12 12:36] Sheila Yoshikawa: 😉 Marly, actually there’s a book which is one of the “books of the week” being read daily on BBC radio 4 about that – about how there ARE good things happening: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xjb5r

[2018/04/12 12:38] Sheila Yoshikawa: Also, Valibrarian’s digital citizenship initiative partly covers media and information literacy, has anyone else been involved in initiatives to improve people’s media and information literacy? so people can cope better with disinformation. @Liss and @Marly do you think any of your sessions address this? I was thinking of Marly’s sessions, getting people to argue things from different perspectives

[2018/04/12 12:40] Marly (marly.milena): Sheila, do you make a distinction between disinformation, misinformation, outright lying, taking news out of context, etc?

[2018/04/12 12:41] Sheila Yoshikawa: I think using “misinformation” for deliberate misleading is a good idea

[2018/04/12 12:41] Sheila Yoshikawa: as i too feel that the “fake news” phrase has lost its meaning

[2018/04/12 12:42] Camie Rembrandt: :))

[2018/04/12 12:42] Marly (marly.milena): I would say that in my climate change session at least, I try to deal with <sins of omission> ie being able to state many positions besides the ones we cling to

[2018/04/12 12:42] Sheila Yoshikawa: I think that there is still such a thing as lying, but you have to know more about what was said, who said it and what the matter is before you can label something a lie?

[2018/04/12 12:43] Sheila Yoshikawa: sometimes people THINK what they are saying is true because they haven’t thought to question it

[2018/04/12 12:44] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Marly I think one of the GOOD things that is coming out of this is more attention to critical thinking and understanding different points of view, challenging your own thinking

[2018/04/12 12:45] Marly (marly.milena): It is a great exercise to be able to argue for a position that is not your own, that you disagree with, that is questionable as fact. I wish world leaders would do more of that…and our entrenched U..S. Congress people

[2018/04/12 12:46] Sheila Yoshikawa: the presentation is about challenging your own thinking, not politics btw

[2018/04/12 12:46] Sheila Yoshikawa: @Selby yes I think so! but teaching to the test is encouraged in the UK by all the emphasis on league tables and getting teh students to do well

[2018/04/12 12:46] Marly (marly.milena): I refer you all to the books of Arnold Mindell, a Jungian, physicist, shaman, and global thinker who outlines ways of doing this both in personal relationships and large-scale situations

[2018/04/12 12:46] Sheila Yoshikawa: that is a problem in other countries too?

[2018/04/12 12:47] Sheila Yoshikawa: thanks Marly

[2018/04/12 12:48] Sheila Yoshikawa: any other last thoughts about the problem of disinformation and things to do about it?

[2018/04/12 12:49] Marly (marly.milena): Some titles: Sitting in the Fire, Leader as Martial Artist, The Deep Democracy of Open Forums, Conflict: Phases, Forums, and Solutions

[2018/04/12 12:49] Sheila Yoshikawa: Thanks

[2018/04/12 12:49] ThinkererSelby Evans (thinkerer.melville): Tests could test for critical thinking if that were specified by the instructional objectives

[2018/04/12 12:50] Sheila Yoshikawa: The trouble with that is that people sometimes start to learn the things that pass the test, without necessarily internalising the thing they were supposed to learn, I have that problem sometimes with reflective writing

[2018/04/12 12:51] Sheila Yoshikawa: some people get good at writing reflective writing that isn’t necessarily reflective of what they actually think/did

[2018/04/12 12:51] Sheila Yoshikawa: though at least they have learnt what “reflection” looks like….

[2018/04/12 12:51] Sheila Yoshikawa: but I’m being negative there!

[2018/04/12 12:52] Sheila Yoshikawa: Had you any ideas for the types of things that could be used to test @Selby?

[2018/04/12 12:52] Marly (marly.milena): We still struggle with the real value of education and what teaching and learning are all about. What is a good teacher? How do you teach processes of learning vs. data….